Descartes' Syndrome
Descartes discounted, or was obviously ignorant
of the nature of the reflexive role of the
pronominal discourse referent "I."
Its function is that of self-referential
specificity (the quality of particularising
one's own self - rather than generalising
the other.)
When I speak of a person's self or experiential biography or unique humanness
I am not referring to the ability to remember
any particular episodes in that life-time of experiential
events - I refer instead to the retrospective
course of existing as an individual; from
babyhood to one's present age - a remembrance
of the GENERALITY of our overall existence,
our actions and events that occur in living
as the selves we are HOWEVER HAZY those memories
may be.
From the perspective of a participant in
an act of speech or writing "I"
is anaphorically linked to and is usually
capable of initiating and selectively instantiating
a vast multitude of data from the immense
complexity of a human's experiential biography,
manifested as either and/or a conceptualised
imagery, or a linguistically-based, antecedally
composed, neurological chronicle of his or
her life.
Thus in his illocutionary attempt to create
a basic existential ontological proof or
axiom, his choice of the pronominal referent
of the "I" for inclusion in his
spurious sentence:
"I " think - therefore I am
was probably the worst possible word he could
have chosen as a head word in his ill judged
cogito.
As every utterer of the "I" word
is aware, "I" is a referential
term which derives its reference from antecedency,
or the thinking, flesh and blood state or condition
of being physically and neurologically antecedent
. Thus, in the total absence of a referential
antecedent, the word "I" would
be neuro-linguistically inaccessible to an
entity which was no longer capable of total
recall and the word "I" would be
rendered meaningless to the user - for there
would be no self or experiential biography or unique humanness to act as an available referential
denotatum.
The first person pronoun "I" is
the most powerful referent in any language.
"I" conveys the utmost informational
recall as to personal identity, self knowledge
and understanding of an individual's history,
beliefs, goals, abilities and occurrent realisation
of his or her current state of connectedness
with the surrounding environment.
Any person who upon uttering the pronoun
"I" seriously claims that they
do not know who, or what they are, and appear
bereft of the cognitive processes whereby
their experience is remembered, or persists
in stating that they remain incognisant of
his or her identity - must be judged to be
either temporarily or permanently brain damaged,
or at least profoundly neurologically disturbed,
or traumatised to such an extent that their
engrammic memory traces - the biochemical
changes encoded in their neural tissue that
represent what we call memory is no longer accessible.
I stand by my choice of anaphora. My whole logomachy revolves around the necessity
of grasping one's biographical antecedency
in order that the pronoun "I" may
even be lexically retrieved and uttered meaningfully.
The sentential alternative would be to generate
an illeistic1 sentence such as:
Rene Descartes thinks - therefore he exists.
Though I doubt if someone who is neurologically
incapable of retrieving and employing the
first-person pronoun I would be capable of
constructing another string which included
the third-person pronoun he either.
It is quite possible that an amnesiac could
employ the word "I" but be incapable
of utilising that word in its usual role
of a self- referencing linguistic device
for calling up the citational biography or
radically distinctive unique human qualities
of his historical self.
The referent "I" is a word which
can only be used by someone who is already
aware of his existential state as a human
equipped with a neuro-linguistic heritage
capable of communicating the significance
of the pronoun "I" - in that it
is a function word that is used in place
of a noun such as: Joe, Rene, Adolf , Martin or The Mad Hatter.
Notes.
1. illeistic. illeism is the act of referring to
oneself in the third person.
THE CARTESIAN LET'S PRETEND
A neurologically traumatised person
is the
only paradigm of the human condition
which
could possibly provide the model for
the
existential state of self-referential
ignorance
and identity-unawareness that the imaginary
protagonist in the Cartesian philosophical
parlour-game could portray.
I'll deal with the question of pretence in a moment - first questions regarding
the neuro-physical structure humans are a
matter for the many experts that study such
matters, such as: biologists, anaesthesiologists, biochemists,
cardiovascular specialists, general
physicians,
genetic counsellors, immunologists
kinesiotherapists,
neurologists, etc. If you are female and your structure is undergoing change in the abdomen - area
- you go and see and obstetrician. If your
limbs are failing you make an appointment
to see an orthopaedic surgeon.
If he cuts your leg off you turn to a prosthetist
who assists patients with disabling conditions
of limbs and spine, or with partial or total
absence of limb, by fitting and preparing
orthopaedic braces or prostheses.
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In such circumstances you do NOT turn to
some metaphysicalist fantasist
who does not
even know who he is or what he
is or even
if he really exists.
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It is the inability of the traumatised person
who, whilst retaining the capacity to verbalise
of the "I"-word, is unable to refer
this linguistic semeion to retrieve his neuro-autobiographical
background. In such a case (as with Descartes'
counterfactual amnesiac) he lacks any normal
awareness of the self or his own identity
as person considered as a unique individual,
thus mirroring the Cartesian: Let's Pretend
"I" am not sure "I" exist
scenario.
Any other ramblings of such a hospitalised
patient, though perhaps they may be psychologically
interesting to professional neurologists,
and include the ignorance-of self-symptoms
characteristic of what we might refer to
as: The Descartes Syndrome in my opinion the do not concern this discussion.
En passant, I am surprised that the medical
profession have not seized upon the term:
The Descartes Syndrome to describe such a pattern of symptoms indicative
of the inability of a patient to recall who
or what he is.
Metaphysical dabblers are not really
the
sorts of kooks that the average human
who
suffers neurological and/or physical
problems
consults on such matters. Even Heidegger
checked himself in a mental home and
put
himself in the care of the white-coated
ones
when he went (conveniently?) mad just
as
the French tanks rolled into town.
He didn't
reach for Being and Nothingness from the bookshelf, or consult Bishop Berkeley's
Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous.
For example most nuns consult their neurologist
rather than their exorcist a during their
mad spells (which is most of the time) and
I can provide over 100 biblical references
which identify the casting out devils is
a central activity of believers. Both the
self-styled theologian Heidegger and the obsequious Bishop and Dean
flatterer Descartes were believers, so maybe Descartes' counterfactual manikin
thought he might himself be a devil? Maybe
he WAS a devil?
And now to my mention of my use of
the word pretend in relation to Descartes game of Postman's Knock or Metaphysical Musical Chairs
However we are not truly concerned with the
bizarre behaviour of some accident victims
in a hospital's A & E department, but rather the bizarre "philosophical"
behaviour and lack of any rigerous analytical
propensity on the behalf of an apparently
healthy educated person like Descartes, who
(for the purposes of some spurious transcendentalist
"research") pretended or put himself
in the fictional position of somebody who
didn't know who he was and/or what he was.
The words pretend and pretence have a variety of meanings. The word pretend perhaps gives the impression that I intended
to imply that Descartes constructed his counterfactual
scenario with the intent to deceive. Anyone reading my paragraph above
with my deliberate inclusion of the terrn:
for the purposes of some spurious transcendentalist
"research" can see immediately that my meaning is that
he presented his cogito as a metaphysical mind game in the sense of...
Let's pretend that... blah, blah, blah. or Let's imagine that... blah, blah, blah
which is technique that continues to be used
in some of the those ill-ventillated rooms
which lead off from the corridors of shame
and is known in modern parlance by the university
students who throng those dispiriting passageways
as: Let's Pretend Philosophy."
COUNTERFACTUALITY
Deliberately acting or deviating from the
truth and going counter to the actual facts
indicating opposition or resistance to reality is usually described in natural language
as lying. Unless that is, what are purported
to be facts are admitted to be fictional.
So how does a certain type of "philosopher" get away with avoiding being called
a fictionalist or a liar? It's simple - he deems his use of counterfactuality
as: a Let's Pretend or a Mind Game.
Now there is no need to have studied in the
corridors of shame to work out that the only
way that such philosophical counterfactual mind-games can command any respect or interest (apart
from transcendentalist thurifers of Plato
- is if the mind games have at least a modicum
of ontological feasibility. In other words
that such a situation might be one in which
a human being could possible find him or
herself.
For example, if a philosopher with
counterfactual
diarrhea said:
| Let's imagine you are positioned on the sun
looking towards the planet earth - you would
see... blah, blah, blah... |
we realise immediately that such a
counterfactuality
is unfeasible, for no organism could
even
approach the sun with any degree of
closeness
without being burned to a cinder.
If on the other hand the let's make-believe
philosopher said:
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Let's imagine we position an automatically
operated, specially heat-insulated, camera-equipped
space craft as near to the sun as possible
without it being burned to cinder or rendered
unserviceable. Looking towards the planet earth and capable
of transmitting pictures back -
you would see... blah, blah, blah...
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we would then be more likely to take
him
seriously, because even with our present
level of technical expertise such a
investigative
project is feasible.
In relation to the position of the
person
depicted in the first meditation who
does
not know who he is and (by implication)
what
he is - we discover that the only human
condition
which corresponds to the symptoms of
experiential
ignorance and ontological confusion
is that
of a disoriented person who has lost
all
recollection of time, self and place
who
in the first stages of recovering an
emerging
awareness and an appropriate response
to
self.
The metaphysical manikin's recovery from
trauma becomes more evident with the gradual
return of the facility for language acquisition,
a recovery of the historical self and the
familiar unawareness of his onto-philosophical
impairments and cognitive disabilities as
he resumes the task characteristic of a brain-washed
Catholic apologist of asserting the existence of God.
We can better discover and identify a more
precise correspondence between the neuro-physical
condition of Descartes transcendentalist
theoretical trial balloon and a real life
human in such a condition of dysphasia by
consulting the experts. Below is a symptom
check-list of such incidence of trauma in
which I have selected in red the symptoms
which characterise the victim of Descartes'
cogito for which I have created the neologistic:
Descartes' Syndrome.
According to this symptomatic analysis a
person suffering from Descartes' Syndrome has most likely to have experienced a severe
blow to the side of his head above ears.
Such a person would also demonstrate and
increased and decreased interest in sexual
behaviour and the inability to categorize
objects.
Therefore it is tempting to construe that
because of a decreased interest in sexual
behaviour allied to an inability to categorise
objects, which would of course have included
his wife, his frustrated female partner would
have delivered our heedless hero a blow with
the chamber-pot to the side of his head with
such force that it rendered him even more
ontologically senseless than he was prior
to the blow being delivered?
If such is the case, a physiological
short-cut
that may prove helpful in establishing
existentiality
which would provide a more instant
proof
that one exists is to glance dawn at
the
positioning of the male member. If
it hangs
sullenly flaccid then the trauma can
said
to be still in its early stages - if
it manifests
evidence of felicitous tumescence then
it
is possible that a gradual recovery
is taking
place. On this basis I recommend that
instead
of the term
I think - therefore I exist
being the watchword of the transcendentalist
hoi polloi, it should be replaced by
the
term:
I have a an erection therefore I exist.
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A wide variety of symptoms can occur after
"brain injury." The
nature of the
symptoms depends, in large part,
on where
the brain has been injured. Below
find a
list of possible physical and
cognitive symptoms
which can arise from damage to
specific areas
of the brain
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SYMPTOM CHECKLIST |
Frontal Lobe: Forehead |
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Loss of simple movement of various
body parts
(Paralysis). Inability to plan
a sequence
of complex movements needed to
complete multi-stepped
tasks, such as making coffee
(Sequencing).
Loss of spontaneity in interacting
with others.
Loss of flexibility in thinking.
Persistence
of a single thought (Perseveration).
Inability
to focus on task
(Attending). Mood changes (Emotionally
Labile).
Changes in social behaviour.
Changes in personality.
Difficulty with problem solving.
Inability
to express language
(Broca's Aphasia).
|
Parietal Lobe: near the back and top of the
head |
|
Inability to attend to more than
one object
at a time. Inability to name
an object (Anomie).
Inability to locate the words
for writing
(Graphical). Problems with reading
(Alexia).
Difficulty with drawing objects.
Difficulty
in distinguishing left from right.
Difficulty
with doing mathematics (Discalced).
Lack of awareness of certain
body parts and/or
surrounding space (Praia)
that leads
to difficulties in self-care.
Inability to
focus visual attention. Difficulties
with
eye and hand coordination.
|
Occipital Lobes: most posterior, at the back
of the head |
|
Defects in vision (Visual Field
Cuts). Difficulty
with locating objects in environment.
Difficulty
with identifying colours (Colour
Agnosia).
Production of hallucinations.
Visual illusions
- inaccurately seeing objects.
Word blindness
- inability to recognize words.
Difficulty
in recognizing drawn objects.
Inability to
recognize the movement of object
(Movement
Agnosia). Difficulties with reading
and writing.
|
Temporal Lobes: side of head above ears |
|
Difficulty in recognizing faces (Prosopagnosia).
Difficulty in understanding spoken
words
(Wernicke's Aphasia). Disturbance
with selective
attention to what we see and
hear. Difficulty
with identification of, and verbalization
about objects. Short term memory
loss. Interference with long term memory. Increased
and decreased interest in sexual
behavior.
Inability to catagorize objects
(categorization). Right lobe damage can cause persistent
talking. Increased aggressive
behavior.
|
Brain Stem: deep within the brain |
|
Decreased vital capacity in breathing,
important
for speech. Swallowing food and
water (Dysphagia).
Difficulty with organization/perception
of
the environment. Problems with
balance and
movement. Dizziness and nausea
(Vertigo).
Sleeping difficulties (Insomnia,
sleep apnea).
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| Cerebellum: base of the skull
Loss of ability to coordinate
fine movements.
Loss of ability to walk. Inability
to reach
out and grab objects. Tremors.
Dizziness
(Vertigo). Slurred Speech (Scanning
Speech).
Inability to make rapid movements.
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Obviously his pretend-patient had to make
a speedy recovery in order to construct a
dualistic happy-ending and move on to the
next section in which to *prove* the existence
of God. Descartes would have made a good
male nurse on a psychiatric ward if they
had been around in those days. Though he
might have been found gazing at the ceiling
searching for the patient's soul instead
of dressing his head-wound and thesae days
these days of course devils are not admitted
to hospital wards.
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